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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648677">Anger Will Get Me Through</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennedByLynn/pseuds/PennedByLynn'>PennedByLynn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cobra Kai (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Violence, Anger, Angst, Character Study, Emotions, Gen, Insecurity, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:14:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,026</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennedByLynn/pseuds/PennedByLynn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath." - Eckhart Tolle</p><p>A character study in which Hawk reflects on events from his distant and recent past, looking at the roles that different emotions played in his life. This is a bit of an angsty one-shot that takes a look at the considerable amount of pain I always suspected Hawk must carry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Anger Will Get Me Through</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hawk had come to rely on his anger. No, he’d come to love it. He wrapped his rage around him, allowing it to mask and bury all those other uncomfortable emotions. You know, the ones like grief and insecurity and true, aching sadness.</p><p>Anger offered him solutions. It fueled his late training sessions. It whispered fantasies of revenge. It didn’t leave him crying at the kitchen table while his mom called the school in another misguided attempt to help her son.</p><p><em>You only feel one emotion at a time.</em> Moon had told him that once. He hadn’t believed her then. He’d felt too much his entire life. A swirling mix of embarrassment and sadness had hovered over his every move, even when it was tinged with genuine happiness.</p><p>But anger was different. Rage was different. Finally, a singular emotion for him to latch onto. Though it had once been one option in a sea of so many others, the more he chose anger, the more he relished its protection.</p><p>Hadn’t the anger kept him from falling apart after Miguel’s accident? Didn’t it allow him to feel something other than mortification when his classmates whispered <em>bedwetter</em> while he passed through the halls?</p><p>Best of all, anger is what would fuel him to face down Keene when he was released from juvie. Sensei Kreese had shown him how to harness his anger, how to channel it into the barrage of punches and jabs and kicks that he was so fond of. Anger would keep him from going soft, from becoming weak while the war waged on.</p><p>And yet, despite the steady flow of anger that poured over him these days, a flicker of doubt would occasionally make its way through. Questions would surface. Questions like “Why was Miguel able to fight through physical therapy and rehab without being consumed by anger?” and “Why did he sometimes feel like the malice in Sensei’s eyes was more strategic than truly angry?” and “Why, for the love of God, were his fellow Cobras able to just go about their school days without wanting to put their fists through a locker?”</p><p>It didn’t seem fair. But, Hawk supposed, that was just the story of his damn life. He saw the looks of concern on the faces of his teachers, on Counselor Blatt. Where was that same concern when he was the victim of misplaced teen aggression? Why had nobody cared that Eli spent some class periods silently screaming, begging, <em>daring</em> someone to notice how much pain he was in?</p><p>No, they hadn’t cared when his pain left him shrinking into the oversized sweaters he wore like a shield. Even Demetri couldn’t see it. His best friend, his <em>only</em> friend, only noticed Eli’s pain when it started manifesting in physical violence rather than tear stains on his pillow. Demetri, who sat there and waxed poetic about the good old days, as if Eli had been happier back then. Eli had been a lot of things, but happy was never one of them.</p><p>Sure, he’d felt happiness. He’d even go so far as to say he’d felt genuine joy before. But it had never been his baseline emotion, despite how much he tried to pretend for his parents’ sake. He learned to stop telling his parents how his school day actually was, to try to filter the stories into something digestible and rose-colored. Eli was all too familiar with his mother’s tears and he hated being the cause of them.</p><p>It had all just been practice, he supposed, for his debut as Hawk. He faked his confidence the same way he used to fake his smiles at the dinner table. People so often chose the easiest explanation. Nobody had stared at Hawk long enough to realize he still couldn’t hold their gaze for more than a few seconds. They didn’t notice the way their looks still triggered his fight or flight response before he remembered, a split second later, that he was inviting their stares now.</p><p>He’d gotten better, as the months wore on. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? His sharp quips and alpha-male comments flowed with ease now. Traces of Eli were few and far between, he made sure of it.</p><p>Which made it all the worse that Demetri had used his one slip-up against him. He hadn’t so much as thought about <em>Doctor Who</em> in months and then Demetri was sitting there dangling some of the biggest news to ever rock the fanbase in front of him and he fell for it. Hawk fucking fell for it.</p><p>He’d like to blame it on the alcohol, or the revelation of Moon’s new girlfriend, but Hawk knew better. Maybe those had helped to chip away at his defense but the truth of the matter was that he’d been lured in by nostalgia. For just a moment, he’d wanted that part of his old life back. The excitement over leaked spoilers that Demetri had scoured the internet for, the praise he got from writing another long winded analysis on the message boards (under a pseudonym of course). The outside world might have been cruel but huddled in Eli’s bedroom, they’d found their escape.</p><p>What a mistake that had been. Hawk saw things clearly now. Demetri had cured him of any fondness for their shared past when he grabbed that microphone. It confirmed what he suspected for a while: Demetri was no friend. He’d taken his deepest, most shameful secret, and thrust it into the light for everyone to see. Even anger had a hard time protecting him from the pure shock and shame that vibrated through his being while all his classmates once again laughed at him.</p><p>It was the first and only time that his newfound rage had failed him. And honestly? He was grateful for it. He latched onto the anger in the wake of Demetri’s remarks and it was that wave that carried him through school the next day. And when he watched Miguel crash in a crumpled heap on the staircase, something inside him snapped. That’s when he knew. Anger is the only emotion that would get him through.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was, admittedly, a completely self-indulgent free write that wouldn't leave me alone. I thought about trying to squeeze it into Liminal Space but the language is just so different. I don't often write Hawk quite so... eloquently? If that makes sense? I find it hard to jump from that type of introspection to dialogue or interaction between him and other characters but I wanted to give that voice a chance to be heard.</p><p>Thanks for reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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